


GhostbAzters

by KriegsaffeNo9



Category: Azumanga Daioh, Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Ghostbusters International, Mash-up, Proof Tomo was dual wielding first, This bitch is from Christmas 2010
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 10:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13856322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KriegsaffeNo9/pseuds/KriegsaffeNo9
Summary: In a distant, more innocent past, Tomo Takino signs up herself and her buddies for Ghostbusters International and go on their first bust.  Totally not a problem, right?This dates back to December 2010, archived here for posterity slash boredom slash I couldn't go back to sleep and I gotta pick a friend up at a scary bus station today and I put on Ghostbusters 2 on Netflix and went on a nostalgia spiral.  I don't know if anyone else wrote an all-female Ghostbusters team featuring a twitchy dual-proton-pistol-wielding lesbian before me, but I know at least one person did after.  And lo, it was good.





	GhostbAzters

It was the kind of blissful summer day where nothing could go wrong.  A stiff cool breeze blew her hair back and tried to make off with her sun hat.  Osaka held on tight and marched into the wind.  Tomo had invited her to her house in a three-word email and hey, why not hang out with one of her best friends?  Surely Tomo was up to something clever.

The closer she got to Tomo's house the louder the _thup-thup-thup_ of a helicopter.  When she got to Tomo's house Tomo was guiding a helicopter as it dangled a giant metal box on a tow cable overhead.  Eventually it plopped the box down on the driveway and flew off.  "Hi, Tomo!" said Osaka.

"Osaka!  Holy crap, you're not gonna believe this!" said Tomo.  "I sent in an application to Ghostbusters International a few weeks ago and get the hell outta this, they totally okayed me!  Look at this!  Look at this!!"  She patted the giant metal box like a prize stallion.  Osaka noticed there was a logo stenciled on each side, depicting a man made of a pillowcase in a red circle with a line through it.  She pondered the significance.  "In this box is everything we need to make this the best summer ever!"

"Are there cats inside?" said Osaka.

Tomo shrugged.  "Maybe."

"It's not that fun if there aren't any cats," said Osaka.

Tomo felt around the box for a switch or a button.  While she looked Kagura jogged up.  "Yo, O," said Kagura.  "The heck's up with the box?"

"There might be cats inside," said Osaka.

"That's pretty cool."

"Got it!" said Tomo, and yanked a switch on the side of the box.  The box unfurled with a series of impressive clanking mechanical sounds.  Half the box was composed of two racks of equipment.  The rest was a smaller, more rectangular box hooked up to an ominously-thrumming generator of some kind.  "Oooo, we're in business now!" said Tomo, pulling out one of the racks of gear and rifling through them.  She pulled a pair of belts and started strapping them on.  "Call your gun before it's too late!"

Osaka looked around and found the instruction manual, a heavy, heavily-laminated text.  She browsed through it while Kagura pulled the heaviest piece of equipment off the rack, a slab of a backpack set with a rack of enormous, bright-yellow batteries.  Osaka was still reading while Kagura pulled the gun off the pack and fiddled around with the buttons on it.  She twisted a large red switch--the right one.  The backpack hummed to life with a deep, electric whine.  It was elemental, satisfying, striking a nerve that just felt... correct.

While Osaka was reading the instructions, Kagura pointed the gun at the tree and pulled the trigger.  No go.  "Hey, I think mine's broken," said Kagura.

"Sucks to be you!" said Tomo, who unlatched a pistol from each belt and twisted a switch on the side of each.  She pointed at the same tree and opened fire with both.  Two brilliant streams of energy burst from her guns and incinerated the tree.

Osaka looked up from the instructions.  "Please be quiet," said Osaka, and went back to boning up on the dress code.

"Hey, can you look up how to make this thing work?" said Kagura, looking down the barrel of her backpack's gun.  "I think this one's broken."

Osaka flipped to the section on offensive equipment while Tomo fired her pistols at the street, melting asphalt and laughing like a maniac.  "Here we go," said Osaka.  "You have to put one of the batteries in that slotty thing on the back."

"Oh.  Okay," said Kagura.  "I knew that."  She jammed a battery into the pack and fired.  A much larger and more intense particle stream burst from the gun.  Physics must not have liked it much since color seemed to go all weird around the barrel of the gun.  The blast tore into a parked car and exploded the hell out of it.  "Woo!" she said.

"Man, that's awesome!" said Tomo.  "C'mere, high five!"  She pointed her blasters at Kagura, Kagura pointed hers at Tomo, and they opened fire.  The three energy blasts curled, entwined--then shut off.  With a small explosion that sent them flying back, of course.

"Please do not cross the streams," read Osaka aloud.  "While we appreciate your scientific curiosity, all GBI equipment is shipped with a permanent cross-stream governor to prevent potentially-apocalyptic shenanigans."

"Does it have to blow up?" said Tomo, wiping hot asphalt from her elbow onto less-hot asphalt.

Osaka looked it up.  "Yes it does," she said.

"Okay, let's not do that again," said Kagura.  "I gotta get my pads first."

"You wuss," said Tomo.  "Where the hell is Yomi, anyway?"

"Oh, was Yomi invited?" said Osaka.

"Of course she was.  We need a hot secretary with glasses or we might as well just have a gorilla and a talking car.  Am I right?  Or am I right?"

"What?" said Osaka.

"Whatever.  We're gonna have to make a house call."

* * *

  
A day like this was a day to catch up on reading.  Yomi and her mother sat next to each other on the living room couch, reading.

There was a knock at the door.

Yomi tried her best to ignore it.

"Hey, open up!" said Tomo, louder.

"You shouldn't be ignoring your girlfriend," said Yomi's mom.

"Tomo is not my girlfriend," said Yomi, firmly.

"If you insist, dear," said Yomi's mom, smiling wryly.

"Fine," sighed Yomi, setting aside her book and creeping toward the door.  She unlocked it.  Tomo and Kagura burst in, tackling her.  It was over in a few loud, frantic seconds.  Tomo and Kags rolled away, leaving Yomi shell-shocked and dressed like a proper office lady.

Tomo spat out one of Tomo's socks.  "Welcome to Ghostbusters International, Yomi!" said Tomo.

"What," said Yomi.  She raised her head.  "What do you mean, 'Ghostbusters International?'"

Osaka peeked in.  She held out a large black backpack-looking thing.  She shook it a bit.  "You get to have the regular one," said Osaka.

"...Why did you put Osaka in a position where she has to fire lasers at small, fast targets?" said Yomi.

"Oh, I just have a slime blower," said Osaka.

"What do you think we are, idiots?" said Tomo.

Yomi caught herself.  "Fine.  It's better than that bank heist thing you tried last time."  She pushed herself up.  "I'll be back later, mom.  I guess we're gonna bust some ghosts or something."

"Have fun, dear," said Yomi's mom.  "Maybe you'll bust some cute girl ghosts while you're at it."

"Thanks mom.  And I'm not gay," sighed Yomi, following the Idiot Crewe out of her house.

"Not fooling anyone," muttered Yomi's mom.

* * *

  
"God, this thing is heavy," said Yomi, trying to get a comfortable fit on the straps.  She couldn't even sit properly with the heavy thing on her back.

"It's full of radioactive stuff.  And goo."  Osaka tapped the green-colored tank on the side.  "That's in case we have to make stuff gooey.  There's a little switch on the shooty thingey that you press--"

"Hey, do we have alt fire too?" said Tomo.

"Let me check," said Osaka, looking up the table of contents.  Tomo yanked the book out of her hands, and she and Kagura pored for the gear section.

Currently the Tomo Takino Ghostbuster Team were advertising their services in an automat.  Osaka was eating a watercress sandwich and sipping on Orange Sippin' Juice.  Yomi was drinking coffee and trying not to be gawked at.

"Oh, shit yes," said Tomo, "I've got a meson collider in these things!"

"What's that?" said Kagura.

"Hell if I know, but look at that picture!  There's like ten million little sperm beams blasting the hell out of that floaty cloaky wizard ghost!"

Yomi emptied her cup.  "Excuse me.  I'm gonna need more."

"Hey, are you the Ghostbusters?" said a white guy walking up to the table.

"You bet we are," said Tomo, hurtling the how-to at Osaka.  "What do you need busted?"

The guy wiped his brow.  "Well, uh.  It's kind of a funny story."

* * *

  
_beeedeedeedeedeedeedee_

"What the hell is that thing?" said Tomo.

"It's a PKE meter," said Osaka, holding the device-a-ma-jig at arm's length.  "It tells you where the ghosts are and if you should fight it or run very far away."

"Really?  That's crazy."

The guy's house looked pretty normal, but the little taser-with-a-smartphone-for-a-face thing spiked like crazy when she pointed it at the house.  "I bet that's a bad sign," said Osaka.

"Hey, if it weren't, we wouldn't be involved, am I right?" said Tomo.

"Wonderful," said Yomi.  "I definitely want to be killed on my first day of this."

They approached the house with some trepidation.  Kagura blasted the door off its hinges.  Osaka opened the door, which wasn't locked, and what left of it fell into a small pile of cinders.  She gingerly stepped over the ashes, followed by the others.  It was good to know her friends believed in her.

She swept the meter around, looking for where the spikey bits got the spikiest.  "I think I got it," she said, creeping through the living room.  Tomo struck some poses as she followed Osaka, aiming at where it would be totally cool if ghosts popped out.  Yomi brought up the rear, wondering if she should bother pulling out her gun or not.

Osaka paused.  "I think it's in here," she said, pointing at a door at the end of the hall.  "Be very careful."  She pulled the hose thingey from her goo sprayer and aimed it at the door.  Yomi took the hint and primed her own pack.  She winced at the piercing sound it made as it charged up.  She kept the business end trained on the ceiling.

Osaka prodded the door with the sprayer.  She clenched the PKE meter in her teeth and poked at the knob.  Nothing tried to zap or possess her, so...  She pushed open the door.

There was a rather large pentagram inscribed on the floor.  Hovering above it was something that looked a lot like something none of them had seen in person but could not possibly mistake for anything else.  If the thing they couldn't mistake it for was also green, covered in armor plates, and sported tentacles at its base, somewhat redundantly symbolism-wise.

The extremely naughty-looking thing grumbled.  "What, then, do I see here?"

"You see the Ghostbusters!" said Tomo, taking point.

"I see two virgins and two who have never known men," said the beast.  "A pitiable offering for Mara the Defiler."

"...Wait a second," said Yomi, taking co-point.  "Oh, I get what you're getting at, you..."  An insult came to mind, but applied to him it would just be a description.

Mara the Defiler chuckled.  "Such secrets are made plain to my ... senses."

"So, are we gonna shoot it or not?" said Kagura.

Osaka looked over Mara's... shoulder, let's say.  "Hey, I think there's something all magic-looking at this guy's computer.  I bet that's some kind of--"

"Blast it!" said Tomo, opening fire.  Kagura followed suit, and Yomi from the shock of hearing the other two shooting.  Four proton streams lanced at the monster, skewed away from the spell keeping it hovering in place.  One stroke of energy scorched a line through the pentagram on the floor.  The monster doubled in size, somewhat fittingly, and roared in anger.

"You have freed me from my conjurer's bindings!" he proclaimed.  "Now--"

"Keep blasting!" shouted Tomo, and blast away they did.

"Insolence!" proclaimed Mara.  "Know my power!"

* * *

  
Tomo spat something out of her mouth, hoping it wasn't a tooth.  Wow, that had sucked.  What had sucked?  She was suddenly unclear on the subject.

She opened her eyes.  Hey, the sky!

Oh, hey, there was some, like, magic or something too.  All sparkling and purple and stuff.  And kind of ominous-looking.

She sat up.  Oh yeah.  That giant wang had blown the house to splinters.  She swam out of a pile of housing material.  Kagura was on her feet, at least, and giving Mara the business.  Free of the house they had a lot more room to maneuver.  Osaka was looking something up on her cell phone while Yomi was alternating between shooting and panicking.

Tomo hiked to Osaka.  "What's goin' down?" said Tomo.

"Just Googlin'," said Osaka.  "You know, weaknesses.  And stuff."

"Keep it up, I'll be right with ya."  Tomo spun around, proton streams blazing.  "Saddle up, you bastard, it's time for a bris-ing!"  She charged into the fray.

Osaka kept Googling.  After a while somebody tapped her on the shoulder.  "Hm?" she said.  "Oh, hi Mark!"

"Hey, how is the whole ghost situation going?  Discreetly?"

"Oh, very discreetly," said Osaka.

"Oh, thank God.  Last thing I needed is the neighbors thinking I'm some kinda ..."  He looked at not-Osaka.

"Oh, hi Google!" said Osaka.  "Hey, guys, I found something!"  She stuck her phone back in her pocket, whipped out her sprayer thingey, and hopped on in.

"Agggh!" said Kagura, entangled in a mass of tentacles and firing blindly at the base of Mara.  "What the hell is taking so long!"

"I'm sorry, I got a couple of YouTube videos and there were cats.  Cats are so cute!  Why weren't there cats in the box?  ...I guess it would've been cold, though.  And cats aren't all that useful for busting ghosts.  Usually.  And then there's food and combs and little costumes... oh, okay.  I guess I can see why."

Yomi said something to Osaka.  It was more like a scream.  A lot of screaming, really.  "We're all going to die!  We're all gonna die!"

"Yomi!  Just who I was looking for!  It turns out Mara is weak against positive energy!"

"Oh, obviously he is!  Let me just get some Enya CDs and some incense and we'll toss some love beads around and that'll just be--"

"The goo is positive," said Osaka.

Yomi went pale.

"I mean our goo."

Yomi went paler.

"I mean..."  Osaka tried to pantomime the physics behind ectoplasm before realizing that she didn't much understand herself.

Tomo got blown off her feet by a burst of fire magic.  "'Zat all you got?" she said.  She was blown off her knees by another explosion.  "Oh, now you're a OW!"  Tomo landed on her back.  "Come on, you can't just be a one-trick OWW!"  Mara juggled her on a series of explosions, cackling.

Osaka gave up explaining and sprayed some goo at Mara.  The monster howled in pain.  "What manner of sorcery...!" said the demon monster god naughty-part.

Kagura dropped from his tentacles, landed on her feet, did a combat roll because she felt like it, and got back to shooting.

"Come on, Yomi!  You can do it!" said Osaka, continuing to spray Mara with slime.  The results were... unspeakable.  But hey, it was getting the job done.  "There's a little blue switch.  Flick it like you mean it!"

Yomi followed Osaka's order.  The sprayer slung under the proton wand sent a geyser of ooze onto Mara.

 

"Urraaaagh!" roared Mara.  "You vile beasts!"  He hurled fireballs at the stinging gnats, Tomo and Kagura darting out of the way, Osaka extinguishing the other blasts as they closed in.  "You cannot hope to defeat me!  I am the embodiment of fear itself!  I am the god-king of the Id!  I--no!  This cannot be!"

The proton streams ceased tearing into the monster and entwined the enormous... object... creature.

"Hey, what the hell!" said Tomo.  "Stop looping and start exploding, you stupid energy... weapon... thing!"  Mara tried to fly out of the blasters' grasp, pulling Tomo and Kagura along like a giant not-safe-for-work kite.

"That means he's out of ectopresence!" said Osaka.  "That means we can trap him!"

"Out of what so we can what?" said Kagura, bracing herself against a mailbox.

"You know.  Trap them."

"Trap them?" said Kagura.

"Oh yeah," said Tomo.  "There's traps.  Involved.  Or something.  Did anybody bring one?"

Osaka felt around her belt and pulled a wheeled box free.  "I got one!" said Osaka.  "Yomi, you can start zapping the..."

Yomi's eyes were closed.  She was emptying her slime culture at where Mara was a few seconds ago.  She tapped Yomi's shoulder.  "It's okay.  You can open your eyes now."

Yomi opened her eye a peep and saw Mara dragging Tomo and Kagura behind him.  "No.  It's not okay."

"Come on, Yomi!  You can do it!"  Osaka tapped a button on her sprayer and splashed Mara with tethers of ectoplasm, lashing him to the ground and keeping him in place.

Yomi thumbed the blue switch, briefly opened her eyes, and joined in on shooting Mara.  "Yaaagh!"  It was like she'd thrown a lasso onto the beast.

"Okay, I'm putting the trap out there now!" said Osaka, walking under Mara and setting down the trap.  She unspooled the tether and set the foot pedal down on a nice flat surface.  "We ready?"

"I will violate your souls for this impertinence!" proclamed Mara.

"Okay," said Osaka, and jumped on the trap.  The box opened and brilliant white light spilled out.  "Bring him in!" she said.

"Bring him in?!  He's like ten million pounds of man meat!" said Tomo.

"Are you a Ghostbuster or are you some guy with an ape for some reason I think is what you said we would be if we weren't Ghostbusters, I think?" said Osaka.

"What?" said Tomo.

"What?" said Osaka.

Yomi threw herself back, pulling Mara right over the trap.

"Nooooo!" said the embodiment of wickedness as he was sucked into the trap.  The box snapped shut behind him and beeped cheerfully.  A helpful locator light shone out of the top.

"Hooray!" said Osaka, clapping.  "We busted our first ghost!"

"Please let's never do this again," said Yomi.

"Oh, shit yeah, let's never stop doing this!" said Tomo, dangling her red-hot proton pistols by the string.  She high-fived Kagura, which escalated into an elaborate high-fiving match.

"That was the most bad-ass thing ever!" said Kagura.

Osaka returned to Mark, the guy who hired them.  He had not stopped staring.  Presently he was staring at the large smoldering pile that used to be his house.  The neighbors had begun crawling out of the woodwork and admiring his smoking ruin and chatting about what Freud would make of the situation.

"Hi," said Osaka.

Mark stared in sheer existential horror.

"Well," said Osaka, "you're welcome, and I'm sorry about the house and the everybody knows thing.  It just sorta happened."

Mark was too busy being catatonic.

"See you!" said Osaka.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have changed exactly one detail from the original fic--correcting how to arm an XGB proton pistol. (I may have changed another detail or two, but it's been a surreal morning.)
> 
> In the years since this fic went up, a Meson-collider-firing proton pistol appeared in the Ghostbusters IDW comic and, well, Holtzmann happened. I'm not saying they ripped me off, because that would be a self-aggrandizing Maxi-Lie, but I definitely called it.


End file.
